Ground Control
by Complicity
Summary: 1981 is beginning to take its toll in the aftermath of the car bomb. Will a new revelation set the cogs turning again in Alex's quest for home or leave her more entwined into this backward world than she ever thought she could be?


**Disclaimer: None of these characters are mine. They belong to Kudos, the Beeb, and the actors respectively. **

**A/N: ****I'm in two minds about kicking the story off like this, bear in mind the chapter title! I hope it's not to messy to follow & I think it improves with age though so please bear with me! Reviews & constructive criticism greatly appreciated.**

**Ground Control**

**1. Word Vomit.**

Having a blow out argument with Gene Hunt at such a pitch and volume that the eyes of the whole department would be on her was not a rare occurrence for Alex. Today, however, something had been different. The fiery looks that had been shot across the room, the gut wrenching, haggard need to fight from two parties so bloody and determined that hadn't been there. She didn't feel particularly broken or deflated, just that her head wasn't quite in the room. As if her driving force was floating above her, and she was just too tired to pluck it from the air and bring it crashing down onto Hunt's fuming, spitting shoulders. This scared him, apparently. Far from being pleased that the nag in his ear had shrugged her shoulders, sat back and let him have his way on some trivial matter, he'd spent the rest of the day being, or at least acting, 'concerned,' unnervingly so. Who'd stolen her spirit? Fuck, she was damned if she knew. How was she supposed to explain herself to him?

"Oh God!" Alex's heart leaps a thousand vaults as she's ripped from her reverie by a clatter and a smash from behind her, and she turns to see the small figure strewn across the floor, broken mug and steaming coffee at their feet.

"Shaz," she breathes, hand on heart and chest still pounding, "I didn't know anybody else was still here."

"Sorry Ma'am. I jus', I thought you. Might like. But then I. Ow, Sorry." The choked up sentence interspersed by heartfelt sobs takes Alex by surprise, and she moves urgently to the young WPC's side, taking her gently into a motherly grasp. They're both sat upon the deserted station floor, metres away from the looming menace of the Guv's door, leaving Alex startled by the situation and by quite how tight the girl's grip is around her silk clad shoulders, tears gradually soaking into her chest.

Shaz begins to talk before the process begins of Alex dressing her burn from the coffee, checking she's not too bruised from the fall and settling her down upon the highly retro sofa with a turquoise rug placed snugly around her shoulders. Shaz begins to talk even before they reach Alex's, before they get quite as far as the car and once Shaz starts to talk, Alex barely gets a word in edgeways for what really must be several hours.

"Thanks Ma'am,"

"Alex.."

"Thanks. You're so nice to me, even when I cock it up you reckon you believe in me an' you even stuck up for me in fron' of the Guv once. An' you probably don't remember but I do cause ever since then, well ever since you got 'ere really, it's all been different. What with the boys an' that, you make them listen an' I reckon we've all learnt loads from you, not that they'd admit it but I will an' I am. An' I'm really sorry about the bomb and stuff and about everything changing since then. I mean, not jus' cause I miss how it was before, cause I do I miss you makin' them look stupid sometimes an' I miss all the teamwork, an' you getting me to help with stuff that's actually not jus' typing. But I'm really sorry about you as well, cause you've changed I think and I know it's all my fault cause I should a' said something before but I didn't when I could a' done then I couldn't what with getting stabbed an' all then it was all too late an' I'm so sorry. I really want to be like you Ma'am, you're so pretty an' clever an' jus' everything an' the Guv worships you. An' I guess that's why I chased after Mrs Price that time, I should a' told you cause I know the boys don't like her and wouldn't a' done even though the Guv said he would. And you know I didn't like her that much either but I figure you did so… Anyway then the Guv left, next thing we know he saved you from that freezer and there wasn't really a time after that. I didn't get you on your own before, you know, the charity bloke. Bastard."

"Shaz, you're going to have to slow down a bit. Before the bomb, Caroline was here? When I was, ah," she searches for the right word, reliving the feeling of death freezing her from the core. "Ill?"

"Well yeah. She was looking for you an' was worried or something, you were upset she thought, an' you'd given her this boy to look after an' did we know you had him? And she thought you might be a bit sick in the head, sorry for saying, but she didn't really know what to do an' someone called Evan said she was overreacting, perfectly good explanation or something. But anyway, could the Guv give you something. She gave him a card then, an' he went crazy. Shouted at her that next time she steps foot in CID she better have bullet-proof knickers on, and to get out before he does something he regrets. See, I figured the card was insulting and there was a reason the Guv didn't take it but I know how much you respected her, and I know what it's like to really admire someone even when everyone around you reckons they're a raving looney… or you know, some lawyer bitch or something. So I figured you'd want to know anyway an' I followed her. Turns out it was a psychiatrist, the card, friend of hers I think. But anyway that's not the point, when I caught her she was crying, like really crying and not so she could hide it from me. Didn't try to hide it to her credit, but she told me she really wanted you to know that she cares, and wasn't just like bundling you off to this looney doctor she still thought you were great, and a good friend an' that. Then she said she wasn't going to tell you but she's leaving London. Probably wouldn't tell anyone actually but when she'd gone could I tell you, cause she said to everyone that she was taking her daughter away for a bit, year out or whatever, but she actually wasn't really coming back and they were moving to Virginia, like in America, to start a new life away from London cause of her husband. She wouldn't tell me why but she said the psyche what'sit doctor was seeing Mr Price too but even though she was running away from him that was different an' she didn't think you were the same an' she was actually rather worried about you, and wanted you to keep in touch. She'd send me the address for you, was going to but well, you know. Everything." Silence. Deadly, fucking, ear ringing silence.

"You really still admire me, even though everybody says I'm a, 'raving looney'?"

"Ma'am..?"

"You know what, Shaz, I think we need a bottle of wine. As a matter of urgency."

The enormity of the revelation doesn't hit Alex until she reaches the kitchen, when all of a sudden her legs are jelly beneath her and it's all she can do to try and grope for the kitchen surface as the bottle of red slides easily from her grasp and shatters into a thousand pieces on the linoleum floor. Shaz is at her side in a flash, the two women rather ironically swapping roles as She holds Alex to her, the elder woman's body limp in her own save for ear-splitting, never ending, body wracking sobs.


End file.
